Beer's looking bullish

New breweries and expansions abound

I'm not an economist, but that’s not to say I’m completely untrained in the discipline. In fact, I once made it nearly two-thirds of the way through an episode of Mad Money on MSNBC and even gleaned that you should always sell when a stock starts to make buzzer sounds. That’s why I feel qualified to say that things in the craft-brew sector are continuing to boom.

If my word isn’t sufficient to convince, you can look at the recent expansion plans for Ballast Point Brewing & Spirits. It's opening up a 107,000-square-foot facility (just a few miles down the road from its existing brewhouse and tasting room) that will include extensive brewing capacity as well retail and office space. Eventually, the addition will allow the company to quadruple its current brewing capacity.

Ballast Point is projecting to put that brewing behemoth online in 2014, meaning there's still a narrow window for other breweries to expand before the world supply of hops is consumed by it. Mother Earth Brew Company has wisely reacted and inked a distribution deal with Stone Distributing to bring its beer to the masses. Mother Earth will soon be represented in Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties. This will include its core beers (Kismet IPA, Hop Diggity Double IPA, Pin-Up Pale Ale, etc.) as well as the newly introduced Sintax Imperial Stout.

In less grandiose, but certainly notable, news, the fledgling Magnetic Brewing has secured a lease in Kearny Mesa and begun moving in equipment. This will make it the third addition to the region alongside Societe and Helm’s Brewing. Further, Groundswell Brewing Company will open its doors this Friday, Nov. 22, to the general public (more on that one soon).